{"id":795374,"date":"2019-05-01T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/rock-mountain-region-breaks-all-time-record-with-24-million-skier-visits-this-winter\/"},"modified":"2019-05-01T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T00:00:00","slug":"rock-mountain-region-breaks-all-time-record-with-24-million-skier-visits-this-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/rock-mountain-region-breaks-all-time-record-with-24-million-skier-visits-this-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Mountain region breaks all-time record with 24 million skier visits this winter"},"content":{"rendered":"
A pair of snowboarders on the chairlift at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area Monday, Feb. 18. The National Ski Areas Association is reporting an almost 11% increase in skier traffic compared to last winter.<\/strong>
Hugh Carey \/ hcarey@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whether it\u2019s at the hotels and inns, cafes, bars and restaurants, or with the season pass-holders, most of Summit County knows this ski season was one for the books. Just how good, though, might be surprising.<\/p>\n

The preliminary figures released Tuesday by the National Association of Ski Areas trade group show that skier visits in the U.S. increased by nearly 11% over last season with more than 59 million this winter.<\/p>\n

The association found the growth was most dramatic in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain regions, which saw skier and snowboarder visits jump by 22.9% and 15.6%, respectively.<\/p>\n

Overall, the 2018\u201319 ski season will go down as fourth best in terms of visitation since the association started tracking these figures in 1978. For comparison, the best season on record came in 2010\u201311, when there were more than 60.5 million visits, followed closely by the 2007\u201308 ski season.<\/p>\n

According to the National Ski Areas Association, no region in the U.S. saw more ski visits this winter than the Rocky Mountains, which broke all previous records by surpassing 24 million visits in 2018\u201319.<\/p>\n

Visits are defined by the purchase of a lift ticket for any portion of the day and the figures include season pass-holders. The strong performance was announced at the National Ski Areas Association National Convention and Tradeshow in San Diego, and more data should be released later this year.<\/p>\n

Like other groups in Summit County, including town officials and members of the businesses community, the industry association has attributed the increased skier traffic in large part to this winter\u2019s abundant snowfall, which was up 31% nationwide from last season.<\/p>\n

The association acknowledged the snowstorms posed problems across the country, but that snow also drew millions of powder-seekers to ski areas in the U.S., including the four located in Summit County \u2014 Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, Copper Mountain Resort, Keystone Resort and Breckenridge Ski Resort.<\/p>\n

\u201cSnow is our greatest asset and this year was one to remember,\u201d said Kelly Pawlak, the association\u2019s president and CEO, in a news release. Formed in 1962, the association represents 317 ski areas, their operators and industry suppliers from the association\u2019s headquarters in Lakewood.<\/p>\n

Traffic to Vail Resorts\u2019 properties is included in the association\u2019s totals, though as a publically traded company, Vail Resorts closely guards the release of skier visits at its resorts.<\/p>\n

However, the company had a good season on the whole, according to information released last week, detailing that season-to-date lift-ticket revenue at the company\u2019s North American mountain resorts, including an allocated portion of season pass revenue for each applicable period, was up 9.3% over the previous year season-to-date period.<\/p>\n

With that, company CEO Rob Katz recently hyped the outgoing ski season in comments about the company\u2019s second quarter results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased with our overall results for the quarter, with strong growth in visitation and spending compared to the prior year,\u201d he said, adding that Vail Resorts\u2019 properties in Colorado and Utah experienced \u201cstrong visitation during the holidays and through the remainder of the quarter,\u201d largely in line with the company\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n

But the season is not over yet. In fact, two Summit County ski areas \u2014 Arapahoe Basin and Breckenridge Ski Resort \u2014 are still going strong while nearby Loveland Ski Area is also operating.<\/p>\n

A-Basin typically runs lifts into June while Breckenridge Ski Resort is making good on its newfound plans to run through the Memorial Day weekend.<\/p>\n

And if snow is their currency, the local resorts have fared quite well this year.<\/p>\n

In the last week alone, Breckenridge Ski Resort received nearly 2 feet of fresh snow. For the season, that put the resort at 428 inches total, making this the third snowiest winter for the resort behind only the 2010\u201311 ski season with 519 inches of snow and the 2013\u201314 season, which had 441 inches.<\/p>\n

All of this snow has been credited, not only for upping skier visits, but for solid growth rates in the county\u2019s lodging<\/a>, its sales tax revenues<\/a> and traffic counts<\/a>, as well.<\/p>\n

According to the Breckenridge Tourism Office, the town\u2019s winter occupancy data shows that, as of April 15, Breckenridge saw winter occupancy rise 7% for November through April over the previous year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strong snow year has driven increases in visitation and many of our ski areas have reported record years in that regard,\u201d said Adrienne Saia Isaac, the association\u2019s director of marketing and communications.<\/p>\n

However, ensuring the trend of heightened skier visitation continues across the U.S. will require more than snow, Isaac predicted, as she said that engaging new skiers and riders, further improving the guest experience and mitigating the effects of climate change are all important to \u201censure the health\u201d of the ski industry.<\/p>\n

Colorado Ski Country USA, a state trade group, will release its stats on skier visits in June.<\/p>\n

The Aspen Times contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pair of snowboarders on the chairlift at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area Monday, Feb. 18. The National Ski Areas Association is reporting an almost 11% increase in skier traffic compared to last winter.Hugh Carey \/ hcarey@summitdaily.com Whether it\u2019s at the hotels and inns, cafes, bars and restaurants, or with the season pass-holders, most of Summit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-795374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 03:37:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}